We have three law enforcement agencies refusing to explain what prompted the need to tackle, assault, and ultimately arrest the only young Black man on a bus full of students coming from a swim meet. We have the perspectives of the victim and, I assume, several of the witnesses to the event. Only a fool takes these facts into account and thinks “maybe we need to hear both sides before we make a judgment”.

We have multiple police officers using force and oppression against a civilian. and not a single one of them has justification for it. They haven't even tried to give a reason for their actions.

When a person raises his hand against any other person the default legal situation is that either there is a good reason which can be clearly shown - or it's a felony assault. This is true whether the person raising the hand is a law enforcer or not.
In this case assault is already proven. Justification which would make it a legal action, has not.

So if the police can't bring a reason to the table then it's already an open-and-shut case of police brutality. No further questions need to be asked. The facts of their guilt and physical action is already demonstrably proven.

If the police HAVE a reason for the assault then the situation becomes a different one. Until they do that, however, the only evidence we have is that they assaulted a civilian for no reason.

The only fool here is the one trying to invent facts out of whole cloth and wishful thinking.

... for making absolutely clear that, contrary to what your PR department says, you do not see copyright law as a means to ensure fair compensation of creatives or, as the founding fathers put it, "to promote the arts and sciences".

Reader Comments

Yes, the police aren’t victims. But they are the defendants. The court can’t assume guilt; it must give the police a benefit of the doubt until the police exhaust that benefit. That the police have done so is beside the point.

I don’t want to sound as if I think cops deserve qualified immunity for everything (they don’t), or that cops deserve to avoid punishment for anything short of outright murder (they don’t). But if we have a system of laws that gives defendants a presumption of innocence until they’re proven guilty, we must apply that standard to all defendants — even ones we dislike — or else the system is broken.

Or, to tie back into that quote: “Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”